ZACA (Zack Tolliver FBI)

by R Lawson Gamble

  Jesus pulled himself from his sleeping bag, crawled to the cave mouth. It was brighter here. He waited, listened. There was the occasional birdcall, some small animals rustling, nothing else. Minutes went by. He waited.

  Many shots came, four, five, all in a bunch. They still echoed in his ear when a scream sounded, powerful, high-pitched, terror-driven. Then nothing.

  Jesus cringed with fright. Despite the distortion of distance, he knew in his heart the scream was Pablo. Something unspeakable had happened.

  There would be no more protection for Jesus; he was next. He crawled deep into the rear of the cave. Like the fawn that blends with sun-dappled leaves when the wolf hunts, his safety must come from the cave's dark interior. He lay perfectly still. His back against the far cave wall, Jesus stared at the patch of light. Hours crept by. Soaked in sweat, eyes wide, breathing shallow––he waited.

  The afternoon wore on; the sun moved across the mountains, the light at the cave mouth grew dim. Still Jesus waited. Whoever, whatever caused Pablo to utter that scream could be just beyond the cave mouth. The shadows deepened. Dusk approached. Darkness might be his only chance. He'd need full dark to leave the cave...to go where? He had no idea where he was, no idea where to go.

  Jesus waited, undecided.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  They could find no prints or sign beyond the area of blood, to no one's surprise. As before, the body was gone, the only tracks those of the victim where he walked to his death.

  Zack had to walk back around the mountain to get a cell signal. He called Darby, told him about the new blood they'd found. He gave Darby the coordinates, promised someone would wait there to assist him.

  When he returned, Eagle Feather was out on the saddle, tracking. Tommy watched nearby. As Zack went to them, he followed the running, hopping prints of the injured man, clearly etched in the dirt.

  Eagle Feather showed him a second pair of footprints, large Vibram soles. "It's Grand Central Station out here."

  "I wonder which team this new guy plays for."

  "Maybe for the good guys," Eagle Feather said, and pointed. "This deeper imprint suggests Vibram Sole took on extra weight. Right there you can see Injured Man's heel dig in deep. Vibram Sole apparently helped Injured Man to his feet." Eagle Feather leaned back on his haunch, looked up at Zack. "Now we got to wonder if Vibram sole had anything to do with the blood, and those missing bodies."

  They followed the prints on across the saddle: the Vibram sole and partially weighted, partially dragged sandals.

  "They stopped here, under cover," Eagle Feather said. "One sat, the other stood or crouched nearby. Maybe they had water or re-bandaged the leg."

  "Maybe both. Look here." Zack pulled broken pieces of sapling from the brush.

  Eagle Feather continued to scout.

  "You go ahead," Zack said. "I have to wait for Darby to lead him to the blood area."

  "Can't he find his own way?"

  "Probably." Zack grinned. "I've got to show cooperation with these guys, or my boss will get complaints."

  "Politics." Eagle Feather snorted. He looked at the sun. "Okay, say another half hour, if he's coming right out. I'll be back by then."

  Tommy went with Eagle Feather.

  Zack walked back across the saddle. It was long past noon, his stomach told him. He found another energy bar and chewed on it until Darby arrived.

  An investigator from the California State Police came with Darby.

  "Zack, meet Clem. He's helping with the investigation. Forestry will send their own team out from Washington as soon as they can mobilize."

  Zack shook hands. The uniformed trooper was short and wiry, maybe Irish, from the smile lines and general look of him.

  "You've got a mess here, it seems," he said to Zack with a shake of his head.

  Darby glanced at Zack. "Everybody's in a stir. When Malden got shot, it started a wildfire."

  Zack led them up to the blood-coated area.

  Darby stared down at it. "I saw the blood spill near the Sisquoc River yesterday. This looks the same. These are nasty. I'm almost ready to believe someone robbed a blood bank and dumped this stuff around just to blow our minds."

  "Would that it was that harmless," Zack said. "For each of these we've got good evidence that a man has gone missing. We just can't find his body."

  Darby bottled blood samples. "It takes a while to get a full DNA profile and to check CODIS. I already know there's no match for the first blood. At least not in this country."

  "How about Mexico or South America?"

  "We're trying to get cooperation from those authorities right now," Darby said. He capped off a tube. "Still, they'll need to be on file. They have DNA markers for active criminals down there, but not as many as I'd like."

  Clem walked around the blood pool. "Somebody walked here before me. Was it you?" He looked at Zack.

  "My partner looked for signs. He didn't find anything."

  "What do you make of it?"

  "I don't know what to make of it," Zack said.

  "Who's that?" Clem stared at the saddle.

  Zack looked. "That's my partner, Eagle Feather."

  "Indian?"

  "Navajo."

  Zack walked down the slope to meet Eagle Feather. "Where's Tommy?"

  "She went on ahead. She's very concerned about the injured guy, wants to see where he ended up."

  They climbed up to join Darby and Clem. Zack made introductions.

  "There's nothing more for us to do here," Darby said. "It's past four. By the time we get back and remove the body, it'll be late." He looked at Zack and Eagle Feather. "You fellas want a ride back?"

  "We've got more to do here. There's an injured Mex grower out there." Zack waved toward the mountain ridges.

  "You've got to stop when it gets dark anyway," Darby pointed out. "We could use your help with the body. There's another team flying back first thing in the morning. You could hitch a ride with them."

  Zack looked at Eagle Feather, who nodded.

  "What about Tommy?" Zack said.

  "She told me not to worry about her, said she'll find us if need be."

  * * * * *

  That evening Susan returned. Zack got a note she'd left at the reception desk of the hotel. He called and invited her to dinner.

  Susan and Eagle Feather had not seen one another for more than six months. The reunion called for a special wine. Zack sent the waiter to find one.

  "Every time the three of us come together, there's a mystery to solve," Eagle Feather commented as he studied his menu.

  "So." Susan glanced at Zack. "It's still a mystery, is it?"

  "It is." Zack set down his menu. "We know a rival cartel sends people to kill the growers in those mountains. The mystery is who kills those cartel mercenaries, and what happens to their bodies?"

  "Dump the blood, steal the body, leave no trace." Susan said.

  "That's about right."

  "Something from the air? You know, one of those personal jetpacks? Or a personal helicopter?" Susan's eyes twinkled.

  Eagle Feather smiled. "Count on the scientist to think of something like that. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit. A jet stream or rotating blades would have to leave a disturbance on the ground. There wasn't any. Further, in at least a couple of sites, overhead foliage would prevent direct access from the air."

  "Hmmm." Susan grew thoughtful.

  "Any explanation you can come up with is welcome at this point," Zack said. He grinned at Susan. "Unless you're going to propose a creature with wings."

  "Could happen." Susan smiled back.

  The waiter arrived with a wine selection. "I think you will appreciate this Red. It's a Zaca Mesa 2006 Mesa Reserve Syrah––earthy, rich, with a sweet berry taste going away."

  "Sounds perfect." Zack tasted, nodded and the waiter poured. The friends toasted their reunion. Soon after, the conversation turned back to the mystery.

  "Allow me to establish a baseline for you," Susan sa
id. She pulled a pencil and a small pad from her purse along with a pair of rimless glasses, which she slipped on. The professorial effect was immediate. "You have three questions to answer: why, how, and who. First, why does the perpetrator kill these people? What possible motive could there be? Second, how on earth does the perpetrator manage it? Third, who or what is this perpetrator?"

  Susan drew a straight line across the pad. At three equal intervals she intersected the line with the questions Why, How, and Who. She looked at them over her glasses. "These questions are necessarily related. We'll list as many answers as possible under each question. These answers should be based on evidence or strong surmise." She jabbed her pencil toward them. "It is important that you not restrict your responses in any way, no preconceived notions, no limitations. Okay?"

  The men nodded. They'd been through this exercise before.

  "Okay, go."

  Zack jumped right in. "Toward motive, someone or something doesn't want cartel assassins in those mountains."

  "That's good Zack, but too general. Do you think it's just cartel killers the perpetrator desires to eliminate?"

  "Maybe not."

  "Okay, simplify."

  "The perpetrator doesn't want anyone killing others in those mountains."

  "Can you make it even simpler?"

  Zack scratched his head. "Uh, the perpetrator doesn't like killers."

  "Do you believe what you just said to be true?"

  Zack shrugged, then nodded.

  "Good. Let's put that under Why." She wrote it in. "Next?"

  "That's interesting," Eagle Feather said. "One might be tempted to say the perp doesn't want any drugs there, but if that were true, he'd kill growers as well. He hasn't."

  "It's killing he wants stopped," Zack said. "Any killing."

  "Very good. You get the idea. What's next?"

  Eagle Feather tried this time. "Under How: the perp drains the blood."

  "Duh." Zack said.

  "No, Zack, Eagle Feather is exactly right. You must put down what you know, no matter how simplistic it may seem." She entered it.

  "Okay, then," Zack said. "Under Who: someone who has lived there a long time."

  "You have evidence?"

  "A witness who has known of his presence all her life."

  Susan wrote it down. "Anything else?"

  "He's a big guy," Zack said. "According to the prints of his soles he left at the first kill, he's substantially larger than either of us."

  She wrote that also. When she'd finished, she looked at what they had so far. "Let's revisit 'Why'," she said. "Can you think of a second reason or motive?"

  Zack shook his head. "We have no evidence of any other reason. Unless it's just random."

  Susan nodded, wrote random. "You sound doubtful about that one. Why?"

  "I don't know, maybe it's because the killings were so specifically directed toward the drug mercenaries."

  "Why haven't you suggested the possibility that the perp works for the rival cartel?" Susan said.

  "It's the timing." Eagle Feather looked at Zack, who nodded. "The perp had plenty of opportunity to kill these guys before. He didn't. He killed them right after they killed someone else."

  "Okay, it's time to take this to the next level," Susan said. "We will re-apply the same question to our most likely answer. So, we ask why again––why doesn't the perpetrator want any killing in those mountains?"

  Zack answered this time. "The perpetrator feels that killing disturbs the peace or sanctity of the place."

  Eagle Feather nodded his agreement.

  "Put it more simply," Susan chided. She looked up as the waiter arrived with their entrees. They waited for him to finish passing the plates.

  After the waiter left, Zack groaned. "This is too much like classwork. More simply, the perpetrator protects the area."

  Susan wrote it down. "How does he drain the blood?" She looked at each of them.

  "The blood flows, it doesn't spatter or fly around," Eagle Feather said. He played with his spoon as he thought. "He somehow immobilizes his victim. Then he hangs him up from a limb. He must cut the abdomen, maybe from below the naval on up into the heart." He glanced at Zack. "Like gutting a deer."

  "That's right," Zack said. "He must remove organs and allow free flow."

  "He's hunting them down and dressing them like a deer." Susan wrote it down.

  The waiter appeared. "Is everything all right?" He looked pointedly at their plates. No one had touched the food.

  'Uh...yes, looks great," Zack said. He realized he'd never seen it arrive.

  As the men began to eat, Susan went ahead with the exercise. "Let's consider the last question, who? Our answer was someone who has lived in those mountains a long time. Let's dig deeper. How long do we think?"

  Zack waved his fork with a chunk of steak on it. "I know where you're going now. To develop such a proprietary feeling for the place, the perp must have lived there a long time. Tomasa told us she wandered those woods her whole life, and has always known of the presence of this...creature. So he's been there at least as long as Tomasa. She's what, 17? 18?" He looked at Eagle Feather.

  "I'd guess 18."

  "Am I correct in assuming you have no evidence that says this person preceded Tomasa?"

  Both men nodded.

  "But nothing to say he didn't?"

  More nods.

  "Pass the salt," Zack said.

  Susan studied her pad for a moment. "Here's what I see in all this. Your perp is an Indian, or closely related to the Indians, who feels a responsibility to protect these mountains. He's traditional, loyal, protective. He has a sense of entitlement, or of authority, and operates under specific guidelines. Physically, he is uncommonly large, very agile, extremely strong. He may well have capabilities beyond our expectations. We surmise his weapon must be a knife, or similar cutting tool. He is very stealthy, practiced in woodcraft." She looked up over her glasses at the two men. "There are remaining questions. How does he sustain himself? Do the Chumash shelter him? And here's an interesting question––is there only one of him?"

  Zack and Eagle Feather stared at her.

  "Shit," Zack said.

  "Do you have any questions about this analysis?"

  "Why an Indian?" Zack said.

  Susan looked at her notes. "His woodcraft, hunts people like deer, your Indian friend senses of his presence, he operates in an area the Chumash hold sacred––lots of little things that add up."

  Eagle Feather studied Susan's face. "You haven't proposed a different species of human."

  Susan smiled back at him. "That doesn't mean it hasn't crossed my mind. It might well come to that. To propose it now, however, would be to get ahead of ourselves. This exercise was to pool the evidence, evaluate it, and draw conclusions from it. As Zack says, when the only possibility left is the impossible, then we must include it."

  Zack eyed Susan with respect. "You have a real talent for synthesizing data, although I don't see how it will change our plans."

  Eagle Feather held up his fork. "Maybe it will. For one thing, we need to observe Tomasa a little more closely, follow her cues. By the way, do you know why a hunter drains away the blood from the deer as quickly as possible?"

  Zack shook his head.

  "It's to eliminate the gamey taste––the longer it's left, the gamier the meat."

  Susan stared at him. "Are you suggesting..."

  "That this hunter eats the meat? We haven't found the bodies, they've gone somewhere, right?"

  Zack dropped his fork with a clatter. "Okay, my dinner is done."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Jesus waited until the cave mouth was but a faint outline against the darkness beyond it and pulled himself upright against the earthen wall. He knew must go soon, or not go at all. Pain shot through his knee, but thankfully it subsided when he eased weight onto it. The splint distributed his weight, made it possible to stand. He took a step. He looked up. He was too late. The cave ent
rance was no longer empty. A shadow obscured the faint glow of the entrance. Someone was there. Jesus held his breath, hoped the intruder couldn't see him against the blackness of the cave's interior.

  "What is your name?"

  The voice that came to him was gentle, soft...feminine. Jesus was startled.

  "You are safe with me," the voice said. "What is your name?"

  Jesus spoke in a hoarse whisper. "I...I am Jesus."

  "Jesus, don't be afraid. I will protect you."

  Jesus was afraid.

  "Jesus?"

  "Who...who are you?"

  "My name is Tomasa."

  "Are you from Mexico?"

  "I am Chumash. Spanish is also my language."

  A riot of confused thoughts crowded Jesus' brain. None of this made sense. "But what...how did you come here?" And then in a rush, "It isn't safe."

  "It is safe now." The words were gentle, comforting.

  Jesus did not reply.

  "May I come in?"

  "I was...I was about to leave."

  "Where will you go?" The voice was nearer now.

  Jesus trembled, flattened against the wall of the cave. He had heard the terrified cries of Pablo. The tough mercenary had screamed like a baby. Jesus recalled folk tales from his childhood, stories of shape shifters, evil creatures who could assume any shape, any voice. He knew only that a woman simply should not be here, not now, not in these circumstances, not in this place.

  She seemed to know his thoughts. "Jesus, the danger is passed. The people who would harm you are gone. I followed you here. I have come to help you."

  Jesus heard a scratch sound and a match flared. In the sudden light he saw a girl, tall, slender, boy-like. Her eyes were soft, compassionate. Then the match died.

  "How do I know you are who you say?"

  "Who else could I be?" She paused. Then she said, "You must trust."

  She was right, Jesus knew. He had no other choice.

  Jesus felt her touch on his shoulder and shuddered like a deer. The momentary glimpse of this woman's face in the light of the match had comforted him in that moment, but now this person stood next to him, touched him. He was afraid.